Elected Officers
President - Debra Irvine
Many of us have long enjoyed Debra Irvine’s gourmet cooking and exceptional homemade limoncello. Now we will all benefit from her leadership skills as well.
Debra brings a wealth of political experience and civics knowledge to Summit County Republican Women and the Summit GOP. She was the Republican candidate for House District 56 (2010) and House District 61 (2012, 2014) and a primary candidate for Senate District 8 in 2020. She served as Chairman of Congressional District 2, Judicial District 5, and Summit County. Debra has served on the Board of Directors of Club 20, the largest lobbying group for the Western Slope. She was also appointed to the Judicial Performance Review Commission and the Colorado Women’s Alliance.
Debra and her late husband, Rob (who passed away in 2016), moved to Breckenridge in 2004. They built their home on property they had purchased during a ski vacation six years earlier. Before their move to Colorado, the couple lived in Brussels, Belgium, where Rob was a NATO diplomat on the International Staff.
Before she and Rob married, Debra worked in the Washington, D.C., area. She was the Administrator for a company responsible for the operations and maintenance of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. After that, she was a Research Analyst, with a Top Secret clearance, for President Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars Missile Defense Program.
In addition to her political and governmental experiences, Debra loves being a professional artist. She won the Breckenridge design competitions for the 2008 Ullr Fest and 2004 Oktoberfest and was commissioned to do a painting for a 2016 Parade of Homes residence where her painting was featured in the living room. That property was named Mountain Home Magazine’s “Most Beautiful Home.” While she has traditionally painted with acrylics, this talented woman is now focusing on pastel drawings.
Debra grew up in Vicenza, Italy, and Garmisch, Germany, and graduated from high school and university in Munich, Germany. She earned a BA with a double major in History and Government and completed post-graduate studies in Political Science with the University of Denver. She was on the high school and college ski teams and worked as a ski instructor in Garmisch. She is fluent in Italian, German, and French.
This patriot is proud to be from a military family. Debra’s late husband, father, and mother rest in Arlington National Cemetery. Her son is an Air Force veteran and US Air Force Academy graduate. She is the proud “Nonna” to her son’s two-year-old toddler and to six older step-grandchildren.
Treasurer - Sue Todd
Sue Todd brings great experience and knowledge to the treasurer position. She has a degree in accounting and has worked in the field for 30 years. We welcome Sue as a new member of Summit County Republican Women.
She was born and raised in Alabama and went to college at Jacksonville State University where she met her husband, Barry. They married in Hawaii while he was on his R & R (rest and rehabilitation) from Vietnam in 1969. The Army assigned him to a tour of duty in Germany when he returned home, and they lived there for three years at Kaiserslautern. The couple bought their first home in Summit County in 2000 and moved here permanently in 2009 from Wilmington, Delaware, after her husband retired. They have two sons and nine grandchildren.
Secretary - Barb Tabb
Barb Tabb is a former treasurer of our local group and is actively involved in the Summit County GOP. She has led several Summit County Republican Women committees, including selection of a winner for our Constitutional Scholar Award, bylaw committee, and annual GOP picnic and Lincoln Day Dinner.
History of the Republican Party
- The Republican Party was born in the early 1850s by anti-slavery activists and individuals who believed that government should grant western lands to settlers free of charge. The first informal meeting of the party took place in Ripon, Wisconsin, a small town northwest of Milwaukee. The first official Republican meeting took place on July 6th, 1854, in Jackson, Michigan. The name “Republican” was chosen because it alluded to equality and reminded individuals of Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party. At the Jackson convention, the new party adopted a platform and nominated candidates for office in Michigan.
- In 1856, the Republicans became a national party when John C. Fremont was nominated for president under the slogan “Free soil, free labor, free speech, free men, Fremont.” Even though they were considered a “third party” because the Democrats and Whigs represented the two-party system at the time, Fremont received 33 percent of the vote. Four years later, Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican to win the White House.
- The Civil War erupted in 1861 and lasted four grueling years. During the war, against the advice of his cabinet, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves. The Republicans of the day worked to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, the Fourteenth, which guaranteed equal protection under the laws, and the Fifteenth, which helped secure voting rights for African-Americans.
- The Republican Party also played a leading role in securing women the right to vote. In 1896, Republicans were the first major party to favor women’s suffrage. When the 19th Amendment finally was added to the Constitution, 26 of 36 state legislatures that had voted to ratify it were under Republican control. The first woman elected to Congress was a Republican, Jeanette Rankin from Montana, in 1917.
- Presidents during most of the late nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century were Republicans. The White House was in Republican hands under Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush. Under the last two, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the United States became the world’s only superpower, winning the Cold War from the old Soviet Union and releasing millions of people from Communist oppression.
- Behind all the elected officials and the candidates of any political party are thousands of hard-working staff and volunteers who raise the money, stuff the envelopes, and make the phone calls that every winning campaign must have.
- The national structure of our party starts with the Republican National Committee. Each state has its own Republican State Committee with a chairman and staff. The Republican structure goes right down to the neighborhoods, where a Republican precinct captain every Election Day organizes Republican workers to get out the vote.
- Most states ask voters when they register to express party preference. Voters don’t have to do so, but registration lists let the parties know exactly which voters they want to be sure vote on Election Day. Just because a voter registers as a Republican, they don’t need to vote that way – many voters split their tickets, voting for candidates in both parties. But the national party is made up of all registered Republicans in all 50 states. They are the heart and soul of the party. Republicans have a long and rich history with basic principles: individuals, not government, can make the best decisions; all people are entitled to equal rights; and decisions are best made close to home.
- The symbol of the Republican Party is the elephant. During the mid-term elections way back in 1874, Democrats tried to scare voters into thinking President Grant would seek to run for an unprecedented third term. Thomas Nast, a cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly, depicted a Democratic jackass trying to scare a Republican elephant – and both symbols stuck. For a long time Republicans have been known as the “G.O.P.” Party faithful thought it meant the “Grand Old Party.” But apparently the original meaning (in 1875) was “gallant old party.” And when automobiles were invented it also came to mean, “get out and push.” That’s still a pretty good slogan for Republicans who depend every campaign year on the hard work of hundreds of thousands of volunteers to get out and vote and push people to support the causes of the Republican Party.
- Reprinted with permission of the Lisle Township Republicans.